Ottawa wants to bring together the best and brightest from around the world to tackle one of Canada’s most pressing challenges.
What happened: The federal government launched the Wildfire Resilience Consortium of Canada (WRCC), a new organization that aims to connect international governments, researchers, and tech companies to collaborate on wildfire-specific research and innovations.
- Among other priorities, the WRCC will focus on fast-tracking wildfire-fighting tech and helping firetech startups find funding, which has historically been an uphill battle for the sector.
Why it matters: Wildfire seasons are only becoming longer and more damaging. New technologies have proven to be one of the main lines of defence in managing blazes, before and after they pop up.
- Alberta is using AI to help predict fire risk with next-day accuracy, Rogers is testing AI-powered smoke-detecting cameras on cell towers, and the Canadian Space Agency committed $1 billion to satellites that can help track wildfires from orbit.
- Beyond those projects, a host of firetech startups have been developing everything from autonomous water-carrying drones to robot firefighters.
Bottom line: Wildfires already burn over 2.5 million hectares of forest in Canada every year — about half the size of Nova Scotia — and that number is expected to double by 2050. Nurturing the next generation of innovation through investment and international support will be crucial to keeping these blazes at bay.—LA